Phoneme \ɔː\ in General American
and IPA phoneme .}} In General American the IPA phonetic symbol /ɔː/ corresponds to the vowel sound in words like "thought" and "cloth", and also "north" and "force". Sometimes the triangular colon /ː/ is replaced by a normal colon, as in /ɔ:/. Most American dictionaries don't write the triangular colon at all: thought /θɔt/. In a non-rhotic accent /ɔːr/ is pronounced ɔː unless it is followed by a vowel, i.e. when the spelling has an "r", it is normally silent unless it is followed by a vowel. In General American the "r" in /ɔːr/ is always pronounced. Many people pronounce /ɔː/ and /ɔːr/ with different vowels (e.g. "sauce" as sɔs and "source" as sors); however since the difference is predictable there is no problem using the same symbol in both cases (e.g. /sɔːs/ and /sɔːrs/). Merriam-Webster's Learner's Dictionary uses /oɚ/ for "north" and /o/ for "foreign". "Sauce" and "source" are transcribed with different vowels: and /ˈsoɚs/. There are places in the United Kingdom where /ɔːr/ is pronounced ɔːr, and places in North America where /r/ is silent. Common words Some common words containing /ɔː/ include the following: * with "oa": abroad, broad * with "ough": ought, thought :past tense and past participle: bought, brought, fought, sought, thought * with "ou": cough * with "a": warrant, warranty, water * with "al": almost, already, also, alter, always, chalk, false, salt, talk, walk * with "all": all, ball, call, fall, hall, mall, small, tall, wall * with "aw": dawn, draw, flaw, hawk, jaw, law, lawn, lawyer, raw, saw, shawl, thaw, yawn * with "au": auction, audience, August, Aussie, austerity, Australia, Austria, author, autumn, cause, clause, daughter, fault, launch, pause :past tense and past participle: caught, taught Words marked are pronounced with /ɒ/ in Received Pronunciation. *because: :AmE: /bɪˈkɔːz, bɪˈkʌz/ :BrE: /bɪˈkɒz, bɪˈkəz/ /ɔːr/ Some common words containing /ɔːr/ include the following: * with "or": afford, born, cork, for, force, fork, form, horse, important, lord, morning, nor, north, or, order, pork, report, short, sport, storm, support, sword * with "ore": adore, before, bore, core, explore, ignore, more, score, store, wore * with "oor": door, floor * with "oar": boar, board, oar, roar, soar * with "our": course, court, four, pour, your * with "ar": award, quarter, reward, war, warm, warn Homophones: bore - boar; bored - board; or - oar - ore - Orr; soared - sword Less common words *corps, deplore, furore, gore, implore, lore, Orr, pore, restore, port, shore, torr, ward, yore /ɔː/, /ɑː/ or /ɒ/ Note that /ɒ/ and /ɑː/ sound identically in most of North America. The following words may sound /ɔː/, /ɑː/ or (in very few locations) /ɒ/. ;Labeled /ɑː, ɔː/ in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (OALD) *chocolate, on, wash ;Labeled /ɔː, ɑː/ in OALD *across, alcoh'o'''l, along, B'o'ston,(*) long, lost, off, offer, office, often, warranty (*) Pronunciation not available in OALD; it was taken from Random House Dictionary.Dictionary.com, Boston. /ɔːr/, /ɑːr/ or /ɒr/ ''See Decoding exercises: "orV" and "orrV" The following 5 words are pronounced with /ɑː/ in General American and with /ɒ/ or /ɔː/ in other parts of North America:Wikipedia, English-language vowel changes before historic /r/ § Historic "short o" before intervocalic R. Retreived 14 May 2015. *borrow, morrow (shortening of "tomorrow"), sorrow, sorry, tomorrow The following words are pronounced with /ɔː/ in most of North America, including the General American dialect, and with /ɑː/ or /ɒ/ in specific parts of North America: *correspond, Florida, foreign, forest, historical, majority, moral, orange, origin, priority Cot-caught merger Main article: Cot-caught merger In many parts of North America (about half the United States and all of Canada)William Labov,The Organization of Dialect Diversity in North America, The o/oh merger The /ɑː - ɔː/ merger. /ɑː/ and /ɔː/ sound the same. This is in addition to the father - bother merger, where /ɑː/ and /ɒ/ sound the same. This means that caught /ɔː/, cot /ɒ/, father /ɑː/ and bother /ɒ/ have all the same stressed vowel /ɑː/. In this accent appears only followed by /r/, as in "north" or "force". In this accent the pronunciation of /ɔːr/ may be or, oər, ɔr or ɔːr. Respellings *aussumhttps://twitter.com/hashtag/aussumUrban Dictionary, aussum *with cot-caught merger: ossumUrban Dictionary, ossum Anticipated pronunciation difficulties depending on L1 Spanish Many Spanish speakers will pronounce the short o sound as /ɔː/ even when it should be pronounced /ɑː/: ''lot as . It is not uncommon to hear them pronouncing or . See also *Homophone *FORCE lexical set References Phoneme /o~2/ in General American Vowel /o2a/ o2a